Monthly Archives: September 2008

I am currently running myself ragged. The fall schedule has been tough so far…actually it has been the summer schedule and Back 2 School schedule that has really gotten me. This week promises to be easier. I do not have to teach and I do not have a 5th Quarter to do and at the end of the week I am going back to my hometown to chill for a few days.

All in all I things are going well. I am increasingly amazed at the opportunities God is giving me to minister in the community. I am also increasingly amazed at how few churches are really ministering to the schools in this area.  It is obvious to me why I am here. It is such a mission field and the laborers are very few. I come from a school of thought that the church should bend over backwards to love and support the community and that is something that is very needed here.

I am excited about what is coming and what God is doing but right now I am excited about vacation LOL

The Carolina Panthers are back at 2-0 . Steve Smith is back after being suspended. Life cannot get much better!!!

I was part of a live web-chat this evening. It was the first time I had ever been a part of something like that. it was very interesting. Check out Terrace Crawford http://terracecrawford.blogspot.com/

Anyway. Tomorrow will mark the 1th day in a row that I will be at the church working without a day off. I will admit I am excited about all the stuff that is going on but I am slap worn. Thursday is looking like a half day off but not by much. We will see.

This fall has kicked off in a crazy way.

We started our new youth Service called “Collide”

We started AWANAs

We started childrens Choir

We are starting our new RAISe ministry Kid’s Own Worship time on Sundays

We started 5th quarter

Collide has been going great and we have had new people every week. Friday we had 5th quarter and we had 21 visitors. AWANAs is much more organized and efficient this year. I have to have two wordays this weekend to get the RAISE room ready. We are going to paint a mural on the wall which should be exciting to say the least.

This past Tuesday I had the opportunioty to become involved in a program that allows kids in the local Middle School to be given a period where they are allowed to leave school and be bused to an off campus site for a Bible class.  I am leading music for the class and I am very excited about it.

We have three classes one for each grade and they rotate through between 9 and 12

I am working with the guys and we had about 40 come through. It was an awesome time. The first and last group didnt get into it much but the 8th graders in the middle started clapping along and singing out. It gave me God-bumps….. I lookf forward to spending my Tuesdays over there every week.

I realized that I have not posted new pics of my office. Well here they are after making it my own a bit

New Rug and Paint

put my guitar and some stuff on the wall

And some new Curtains

Now I need to get rid of the paneling

I preached our evening service this past weekend.  For me it was sub par. I was exhausted and when i get tired my ADD acts up. I feel like I am going in so many different directins and I can’t pull my speaking into a clean clear focus.

Anyway

I spoke on how Jesus treated the religious leaders of his time

The first thing I focused on was how we today villianize the Pharisees as some evil cult like force but in actuality they were the called people of God serving Him the way they knew how.  Then I pointed out some pratices of the Pharisees that Jesus took exception with and how we had many of those same problems in the church today.

I ruffled some feathers but what was awesome was that I actually got a call the next morning from someone I knew I had upset and they thanked me and told me how right I was…..It was awesome

This past weekend we held a celebration service to mark the end of my pastor’s ministry. After 40 yrs in the ministry and 10 yrs at this church he had decided to retire. Now I only spent three months working with the man and for the entirety of that time I knew that he was retiring. But I have to admit that he has become a hero of mine. 40 yrs in ministry is a long time and as I   to my tenth year it serves as a great reminder for me that I have a long marathon in front of me and that because of my young age when I began I may very well make it 50yrs in the ministry. That would make me 67 and is very concievable. I hope that I can withstand the test of time. In hope that I can look back with great excitement and satisfaction as I look at what God has done in my Life.

The service was great and the meal afterwards was even better.  While I will miss him in some ways I look forward top meeting the man God has called to move his church forward into the Next Generation.

I have been on a blogging hiatus these past weeks. As the summer came to a close and school started back i got busy. But now I am at a point where my quiver is full and I have so much to say. Rather than post it all in one lumo sum I am going to be posting very regularly this week.

Over the course of the week I will be talking about

Our Pastor Leaving

My Sermon this week

My involvement with CRT

My Youth group events and my Outlook

Some Summer Summary

Perhaps a return of the “Over Used Words” series